Muse rocks, in every way

Thankfully, the guys in Muse don't care about being accused of excess or pomposity. Bring it on.

Tony Sauro

Thankfully, the guys in Muse don't care about being accused of excess or pomposity. Bring it on.

After all, frontman Matthew Bellamy has expressed playful frustration that they haven't yet been allowed to land a zeppelin (not the Led kind) in a stadium.

Probably the best rock band currently on tour, Muse blitzed Oakland's Oracle Arena on Monday with a sensory spectacle of light, sternum-shaking sound and rock-god posturing that recalled an over-the-top 20th-century era that Bellamy, 34; bassist Christopher Wolstenholme, 34; and drummer Dominic Howard, 35, blatantly and happily venerate.

During a 17-song, 140-minute show they overwhelmed and hyper-activated an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd, their biggest in the Bay Area since Muse discovered receptive - but much smaller - audiences there a decade ago. Muse repeated the show Tuesday in Sacramento.

Bellamy, suitably attired in shiny silver and black, unleashed his typically towering guitar fusillades, striking a catalog of rock-star poses, powering intensely through his vocals - hitting all the falsetto heights - and roaming the multi-level stage to engage with the worshipful crowd at strategically situated microphones.

The fist-pumping and bouncing were almost constant on the arena floor as the band stormed through its anthemic, melodic - metallic and blatantly bombastic - songs. Wolstenholme's thundering bass and left-handed Howard's ferocious drumming propelled them on.

Bellamy, no longer the shy guy he was when the band formed as teenage pals, expresses fury and frustration in many of his songs, railing against capitalist criminals, assaults on the environment, pontificating politicians and the suffocating sense of entrapment and alienation produced by the elites and their bottomless greed.

The trio from Teignmouth, Devon, England, concentrated on material from "The 2nd Law" (its 2012 album), including a towering, show-closing version of "Survival," the proudly grandiose theme song they created for the 2012 London Olympics.

The Stockton-born singer-songwriter gets back to his roots - part of the inspiration for "Walking in the Green Corn," his seventh solo recording - when he performs at The Miners Foundry in Nevada City on Feb. 21.

The 10-track album, which also will be available on vinyl, is a family affair - co-produced by Phillips' wife, Denise Siegel (a first). She also took the cover photographs.

While Phillips is in the area, the Burbank resident will guide a film crew around San Joaquin County - he graduated from Linden High School and once did a child magic act at Pixie Woods' Toadstool Theatre - as they prepare a documentary on his life and music.

Blame the San Francisco 49ers.

There'll be no Super Bowl of Rock and Roll on Sunday at Stockton's Plea for Peace Center.

"It's not gonna happen," said Middagh Goodwin, whose Super Bowl option streak has ended at six years. "Because the 49ers made the Super Bowl."

Since 2007, Goodwin has organized a good-natured Super Bowl Sunday rock concert for those - like him - who don't follow professional football. Or any other kind.

"When it's the (Pittsburgh) Steelers or 49ers, there are bands that won't play," he said. "I had one band committed to it, but it was too close to pull it out of the hat."

So, will Goodwin concede and watch the 49ers play the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans on Sunday? "Um, I don't know."

All the hassle was worth it.

After negotiating San Joaquin County's permit process, Joe Flores finally got to stage the first of what he hopes will be a series of rock concerts at Stockton's Waterloo Gun & Bocci Club.

After the original Nov. 16 show was canceled because of a missing permit, 170 people attended the permissible gig on Jan. 18 as Braata, a Stockton rock-reggae band, formally introduced its first album.

"That's twice as many as we'd expected," Flores said. We're excited."

The "improvement plan for a special event" includes permission for shows on March 15 (Braata and Chico's Brass Hysteria), April 26 and June 7.

Following a year's absence, the Waldo Holt Music Festival (aka WaldoFest) is returning.

The fourth "sort-of-annual" event takes place June 8 near the Calaveras River and the islet where Holt, a conservation activist who died in 2007 at age 58, lived.

Singer-songwriter Dirk Hamilton, who played basketball with Holt at Lincoln High School in Stockton, is scheduled to perform. Other acts will be added.